


Taking Notes

by kaelio



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: ... in a way, Alien Sex, Do you have a strange sense of humor?, Good, M/M, coming at things from an informed place, information gathering, research!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 20:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18785815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaelio/pseuds/kaelio
Summary: Garak dusts off his information-gathering skills in the name of a love that dare not describe its genitals.





	Taking Notes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toastpiercer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastpiercer/gifts).



> welp

“There is a cancellation fee, of course.”

“H-here, here! Please, take these—take these!” Quark squealed, pushing a collection of lightly-scuffed isolinear rods into Garak’s hand.

“These—?”

“Look, I’m still getting back on my feet. Garak! Please! Just, ah, not very liquid,” Quark explained, his voice straining. Garak had not done anything as uncouth as grab him by the collar, but it hardly seemed necessary under the circumstances. Quark could feel himself choke where he stood.

Garak rolled his eyes slightly, albeit largely for effect. He had no real need to collect, although the day had been a dull one and he had hoped to wring a little more amusement from his second—well, third—well, _fourth_ —favorite Ferengi. Perhaps a bottle of kanar or two, given its surfeit. “What _are_ they, Quark?”

Quark perked up—there was a scent to it. _Opportunity._ He nearly trilled. “Oh! Oh, these! Oh, my dear, my _wonderful_ friend, Mr. Garak, you’ll love these. Straight from Earth!”

“And what do I need from Earth, precisely? I hope you’re not… insinuating that I’m in the market for any… _illicit_ information?”

“N-not at all, not at all!” Quark leaned in, his voice hushed, though still audible for a willing Cardassian. He tapped a blue fingernail against one of the rods. “I know you’re a man of literature. But this literature— _a-ha_ —”

Garak didn’t make a sound. Not even to Ferengi ears.

“It’s… _instructive._ For human mating rituals.” He leaned back, his voice returning to its conventional register. (That is to say, comfortable but wary.) “Written by them, for them. Human for human. Classic stuff, top-shelf. I know that you Cardassians consider a visual record of genitalia indefensibly, ha, _gauche_ , but this? Just words. Nice, simple words. Entirely civilized. If one were to—”

“Thank you, Quark.” There was no need to elaborate. He closed his hand and briskly walked away.

Quark pressed a hand against his breast and issued a long sigh of relief. Public-domain erotica had saved the day, yet again. He said a prayer to whatever gods had made humans so willing to share.

 

//

 

 

_—the furry orbs smacking gleefully against the curve of her buttocks, juicy with want—_

“Oh. Oh dear. Don’t like that.”

Nevertheless, it was added to the notes:

  * Testicles (Story 8): round, furred, external (smackable?)
  * Buttocks (Story 8): plump on arousal



Which was quite something, when appended to:

  * Penis (Story 1): Male organ. Phallus. “Turgid”. Swells. Vein. “Stand at attention”. Soldierly (?). Throbbing. (<\- veins)
  * Pussy (?). Hairs. Flappers. Mound. Second pair of lips. [{female specific?} slit analogue] 
    * ^ hairy lips like cmndr. recently (mimicking female presentation?)
  * Penis (Story 2): four spans (??!). Thick as human wrist (??!!!???).
  * “Starfish” (?) <\- gaping
  * Danging purse of man-milk (men produce milk also—mammals!)
  * Taint: mound which produces sweat
  * Penis (Story 3): “harpoon”. [!] => “mushroom-shaped”
  * “Her beguiling feminine clam” (we won’t concern ourselves with this)
  * Sweat = VERY SWEATY ANIMALS, salt juice



(He knew that from the tailoring, frankly.)

  * Testicles (Story 6): “seed bank” (what?), “baby batter factory” (?). “Alfredo maker” (WHAT has the REPLIMAT). Salt-producing, mixes with skin-water for sweat.
  * Penis (Story 6): Spear of Longinus [*don’t bother]. “Hammy man-meat”. “Heated throb sausage”. “Lust puppy howling for puss”. Veins (again).
  * Testicles (Story 7): “furry” & “cuppable”
  * Vagina (Story 7, correct above): “Yawning tunnel of love”. “Lustful flap garden”. “Curtains of passion”. Connected to the incubation chamber in some manner.
  * The bean (?): <\- pleasure button. ( _Ko’vikkkkxx_ analogue?) “Ticklish” (?) and presumably “flicklish” (?) [not relevant]
  * Penis (Story 7): Mushrooms again! “throbbing” (undulate). Hose (?).



 

All that and a range of others. An eclectic collection of metaphors, to be certain. He had investigated a few, as he went. The mouth of a starfish was a daunting presentation for anyone with a fetish for unconventional insertions. He had permitted himself a sigh of relief for his preferences.

That was, he was loathe to admit, one of very few reliefs.

He carefully withdrew a stylus and a designer’s padd, a device he had adapted for sketching out concept work, as well as modifications to pre-existing patterns. With a few blips and one bloop, it displayed a blank canvas. Garak did not consider himself a man easily intimidated, however—

He felt his breath hiss from between his teeth as he reviewed his notes, placed with almost reverent horror only a little to the left. The tip of the stylus met the display with one firm, digital dot.

“Mushroom-shaped,” he verified aloud. Good grief, between the many examples of human cuisine to which he’d been subjected, he could swear there was quite a range. He briefly tabbed over to a new window.

> TERRAN MUSHROOM

_: “a detritus-consuming fungus creates a spore-laden fruiting body known as a ‘mushroom’”_

That warranted a tilt of his head. “Not encouraging.”

Scrolling down to the list of images provided him little in the way of further reassurance.

  1. _Hydnellum pecki_. The human term “devil’s tooth” was applied. (There was a lot to unpack in those two words alone.) It seemed to bleed, and the flesh was pink, like Bajoran humblegum.
  2. _Aseröe rubra_. The “starfish stinkhorn”. Perhaps that was worse. This did, however, complicate the assumed sexual role of the “starfish”. Perhaps one starfish winks, and the “stink horn” reciprocates? The mind boggled, and it boggled badly.
  3. _Clathrus ruber_. Oh, fair enough, this “red cage”. He’d done work on Tellar, back in the day. At least that seemed normal, although leagues from what was implied by the rest of the text.
  4. _Mutinus elegans_. The “devil’s dipstick”? Well, it did have a somewhat oily appearance, long and tapered with a bit of texture. However, this was clearly a mechanical reference, and last he’d checked, Bashir was augmented—not Borg.
  5. _Cyathus striatus_. Hah! What charming prankster had snuck in a naughty photo of that particular piece of Romulan anatomy?
  6. _Phallus indusiatus_. Ah-ha! “ _Phallus_.” He’d seen that word. This was, most definitely, the ticket. A delicate thing—purely artful. There was something in it to admire.



(But heavens above, it was going to be an absolute _bitch_ to clean.)

He thumbed a claw against his lip. All right, so the _Phallus indusiatus_ is the male iteration. The _Aseröe rubra_ would be the participant in the rear? One had to assume.

Garak sketched, somewhat primly, the principal male organ, the domed tip and finespun veil that chiefly embodied the male human reproductive… thing. (How alarming, that the oft-suggested veins were so desperately exposed? One would need a gentle hand, indeed!)

“And let’s see here…. a ‘harpoon’.” A quick search proved that to be a hooked device for murdering cetaceans, such as poor Ensign Iieeeeeekiiiieieiiiii. Shamefully violent. But it was to have barbs, this human thing, and he could not argue it. The matter couldn’t be denied, for all the talk of spears.

And thus, he added barbs.

He eyed his notes again. “It burns,” he mused. He found himself squinting, leaning in. “It _engorges?_ ” He wagged a finger in understanding, as if having unraveled the ruse. “Ah! It blushes and swells. What language! ‘Burns’, dark stars. They do describe their blood as burning, now and then. I suppose a fanciful metaphor will carry.”

With that, he ran a color filter over the sketch. The veil plumped, and the tip was rendered in a fiery orange.

After that, it was time to revisit the matter of the testicles. Hairy. External. Round. Prone to dangle.

Well, they’d been described as plural. No one had ever specified exactly how plural. He drew six or seven small, tribble-like puffs, each hanging by its own sheer thread. He paused and added a few bald patches. Otherwise, it was difficult to imagine how the bundle could produce a sound like _clapping._ That was a skin-on-skin human sound. Unless, perhaps, there were clappers located within the testicles themselves? It did seem tremendously overcomplicated.

He added wiggly lines around the testicles, and a Kardasi onomatopoeia that, roughly interpreted, read: _shooka, shooka_

Garak rubbed the ridge of his nose.

“We’ll hope that at least those are colored the same as the rest of the human’s hair. The orange is so _desperately_ garish,” he remarked aloud. Of course, he was primarily concerned with how it would clash against a considerably more natural lavender.

“And I assume the egress point is… under there?” he surmised, drawing a tidy opening beneath the attachment point for the terrible byssal threads of the testicle mass. “So the member, perhaps, slides in and out, and the testicles recede to cover and protect the slit. Much like a lion’s mane.” He was proud to have remembered the purpose of the Terran cat’s great ruff.

Ah, and that _would_ explain the odd bulge in a male human’s trousers.

The “stinkhorn”, after all, the many-armed receiving organ—ostensibly the female default—could close its fingers and withdraw much more smoothly. Certainly, it was less decorative, less extravagant, but women were known for graceful efficiency the universe over, and one could never fault them for it.

Garak admired his work. It fit nearly all of the parameters.

… Which was not to say he was _altogether_ pleased at this soldierly orange doily, furiously appended to its wrist-thick grapple, much less its trembling, hairy compatriots, to say _nothing_ of whatever the poorly-defined sweat fountain known as the “taint” would prove, on perhaps more intimate examination, to resemble.

He slipped a hand through his hair, right above the top ridge of his ear. Admittedly, he had not foreseen so many logistical challenges in his affection for one particularly kindly soul of an altogether alien breed. It was a good thing that both he and the doctor enjoyed talking, because communication skills seemed as if they might prove… quite mandatory.

Luckily for the doctor, Garak liked him very much. Whether the sketch was completely correct or merely _mostly_ correct, he vowed to cherish it as part of a man worth cherishing, no matter what kind of mushroom it was.


End file.
